Should Jerry Jones Now Be Considered a Top-Quality General Manager?

Is that all it takes? 

The Dallas Cowboys won a playoff game this year for only the second time since 1997, and suddenly their frequently battered owner/general manager is being lauded for his roster-building skills. 

When you reflect even briefly on all of the hardships the Cowboys have encountered in recent years, it's hard to believe that last week the Professional Football Writers of America named Jerry Jones the NFL's Executive of the Year. 

But that's how quickly perceptions can change in this league. 

Two years ago, I wrote extensively about the rise and fall of Jones and his Cowboys, focusing mainly on their mutual descent into mediocrity. You could trace that fall back all the way to the mid-1990s, with Jimmy Johnson leaving amid tumult just prior to a series of draft-day gaffes (trading for up Shante Carver in '94, trading away a top pick for scrubs in '95, passing on Randy Moss in '98). 

Things went from bad to worse in the new century, with Jones dealing two first-round picks for good-but-not-great receiver Joey Galloway in 2000 and trading two premium picks for mega-bust Roy Williams in 2008. 

Also busts: First-round pocks Bobby Carpenter, Felix Jones and—let's face it—Morris Claiborne, as well as second-rounders Dwayne Goodrich, Quincy Carter, Al Johnson, Julius Jones and Jacob Rogers. 

Too many misses, too many reaches, too rolls of the dice resulting in snake eyes. That had a lot of people believing that the Cowboys would never regain glory until Jones ceded power and began allowing his football people to have more say. I was one of those voices.

"Time hasn't been nice to Jerry Jones," I wrote two years ago. "It has exposed him as a mediocre football executive, which probably shouldn't surprise anyone considering that his previous business experience had nothing to do with football and everything to do with oil."

A poll embedded in that same article cited above asked whether Jones or Johnson deserved more credit for the team's Super Bowl spree from the early-1990s. A ridiculous 96 percent of 4,000-plus voters went with Johnson. 

"I think Jerry is a great owner and I hope he stays the course for decades," read the most popular comment below said piece. "Signed, Redskins fan."

FireJerryJones.com came into existence in 2009, while fans petitioned the White House in 2012 to remove their team's owner from his job.

In another poll, which I conducted less than a year ago, 82 percent of respondents said the Cowboys would be better off without Jones. (We'll give that another shot here and see how much things have changed.)

To get a feel for how gloomy things had become, dive into the comments on any of these four articles. 

A major problem is that Jones the owner has often been confused with Jones the GM. It pissed a lot of people off when he spoke pridefully last year about his team's popularity despite its playoff success, but that was the pitch man, not the GM. You really do have to view them separately. 

But the GM role should be a full-time job, and the reality is there aren't enough hours in the day for Jones to do both roles justice. That's why a lot of Cowboys fans have felt short-changed. 

I'm sure some of them still do, but so much has changed in the last calendar year. Maybe Jones has finally begun to place more trust in those surrounding him. That would explain why he has assembled such a deep and experienced coaching staff, or why he reportedly let his son Stephen overrule him on a decision to pick Johnny Manziel in the first round of last year's draft. 

I'm not privy to the inner workings of the Cowboys front office, but that has me wondering if Jones is also making more room at the table for the opinions of those he pays to scout. 

Maybe it's a combination of factors. Maybe Jones is allowing a larger diversity of opinions to penetrate the once-stubborn walls of his Valley Ranch office. But it's also possible he's just become better at this whole NFL general manager thing. A quarter-century on the job has to be good for something. 

Lately, he's been making up for a lot of early mistakes: 

#	The good	The bad
1	S Roy Williams (2002)	De Shante Carver (1994)
2	CB Terence Newman (2003)	TE David LaFleur (1997)
3	OLB DeMarcus Ware (2005)	DE Greg Ellis (1998)
4	OLB Anthony Spencer (2007)	DE Ebenezer Ekuban (1999)
5	WR Dez Bryant (2010)	LB Bobby Carpenter (2006)
6	OT Tyron Smith (2011)	RB Felix Jones (2008)
7	C Travis Frederick (2013)	CB Morris Claiborne (2012)
8	G Zack Martin (2014)

It's fair to wonder if this turnaround has been too good to be true. Is one great year enough to make up for two decades of failed picks and bad trades? Is this an anomaly? 

To Jones' credit, this 12-win season and that PFWA award were years in the making.

• The last four offensive players Jones has picked in the first round of the draft—wide receiver Dez Bryant and offensive linemen Tyron Smith, Travis Frederick and Zack Martin—are all in this year's Pro Bowl, and three of them are first-team All-Pros.
• DeMarco Murray, who Jones drafted in the third round in 2011, led the NFL in rushing by a 484-yard margin in 2014 and is also a first-team All-Pro. 
• Twelve years ago, he signed quarterback Tony Romo as an undrafted free agent. And two years ago, he was criticized widely for giving Romo a massive contract extension. Romo was elected to his fourth Pro Bowl this season after leading the league in completion percentage, yards per attempt and passer rating. He's a legitimate MVP candidate.
• Early defensive draft picks Sean Lee, Bruce Carter, Tyrone Crawford, Demarcus Lawrence and Anthony Hitchens have also paid off, and they've managed to find some solid defensive contributors (George Selvie, Jeremy Mincey, Rolando McClain) in free agency bargain bins. 

And Jones did most of this while having to stay away from top-flight free agents as Dallas dealt with league-imposed salary cap sanctions earlier this decade.

He knew parting ways with the extremely popular DeMarcus Ware would hurt the team's image, but he did it anyway. And there's a good chance he'll do the same with Murray this offseason. 

That's a strong indication that Jones has evolved in terms of the way he manages this football team. It took a little longer than many Cowboys fans would have preferred, but it finally looks as though he gets it. 

Brad Gagnon has covered the NFC East for Bleacher Report since 2012.

Follow @Brad_Gagnon